1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a maintenance manual interface system for easily identifying a reference paragraph of a maintenance manual according to a maintenance request information as well as a medium containing a computer program product constituting this system utilizing a personal computer or the like.
2. Description of the Related Art
Maintenance of a machine having numerous components and highly-sophisticated functions, especially maintenance of transportation means affecting human lives should be performed based on a manual issued by the manufacture of the machine.
In the case of an aviation company, a maintenance manual used for maintenance of an aircraft is prepared basically by a manufacturer of the aircraft, which has been corrected to a certain degree by the aviation company and submitted to a government. At the stage when the manual is approved by the government, the manual becomes an authorized maintenance manual (basic document).
However, since this maintenance manual has been basically prepared by the aircraft manufacturer, it contains sufficient information on technical data and specification associated with the respective components but it usually does not contain sufficient information on a maintenance procedure.
As a result, even when an error detector provided in an aircraft has identified an abnormal component, it may be difficult to find the place where the component is located. Moreover, even when the location is found, there may be no information on a procedure required for detaching and attaching the component.
Furthermore, when exchanging a component or ordering a component, a corresponding parts ID number should specified by referencing an illustrated parts catalogue contained in the manual issued by the aircraft manufacturer. This parts catalogue usually consists of enormous pages and is not always edited systematically. Accordingly, retrieval of an ID number requires a plenty of time. Moreover, some components (parts) look very similar to one another and there is often a case that an incorrect ID number is specified.
The basic reason causing such a problem is that during preparation of an original manual by an aircraft manufacturer, a stress is posed on the technical information and specification of respective components (parts), paying no attention on the relationship between those components or on the roles of the components for the entire aircraft. That is, the technical information is given in fragments.
Although a manual prepared by an aircraft manufacturing company also contains three-dimensional view drawings including showing an entire aircraft configuration, these drawings are drawn considering the aircraft simply as an inorganic structure. They simply express the configuration of the aircraft and arrangements of components strictly from the physical viewpoint and a maintenance engineer cannot know functional relationships between them.
Moreover, the drawings are so much detailed that lines drawn are overlaid and respective components appear in a small size scale because they are drawn according to the scale of the entire aircraft. This makes it difficult to understand the relationships between the components and to know detailed structures.
Conventionally, these problems of the maintenance manual have been coped with by experience and efforts of maintenance engineers.
That is, although it is difficult to read a three-dimensional view drawing of an entire aircraft, maintenance engineers who have actually experienced maintenance works many times manage to understand the relationships between the drawing and the actual aircraft and finally can estimate a work to be performed based on the three-dimensional drawing of the entire aircraft.
As for the respective components (parts), through work experiences, engineers can accumulate a knowledge of functions of the respective components and connections and functional relationships between these components.
On the other hand, the performance and the durability of an aircraft have been significantly improved and the frequency of occurrence of a failure in the aircraft is significantly decreased as compared to an aircraft of the prior art.
This leads to a sharp decrease in the number of times to actually experience maintenance works and it is becoming difficult for young engineers to learn functions and structures of an aircraft on the maintenance site.
This results in that only those engineers having a sufficient experience can actually know the structures and functions of the aircraft, leaving an anxiety for the future maintenance system.
Moreover, even those engineers having a rich experience cannot have a complete knowledge of contents of numerous pages of a parts catalogue including parts ID numbers. Retrieval of a parts catalogue and ID numbers requires a plenty of time regardless of experience. This problem cannot be solved by the efforts and experience of the engineers.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a maintenance manual interface system enabling even young engineers having little experience to easily perform a maintenance work of a machine composed of numerous components and having highly sophisticated functions such as an aircraft and other transportation means as well as to easily retrieve a parts catalogue.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a medium containing a computer program product for the maintenance manual interface system.
The maintenance manual interface system according to the present invention is to be used for retrieving and identifying a paragraph of a maintenance manual to be referenced in response to a maintenance request information. The interface system comprises: a nonvolatile storage unit including: a total management storage block containing an image data of total management drawings, each showing a set of structurally related components which set is specified by the maintenance request information; a partial management storage block containing an image data of partial management drawings corresponding to the respective components of the set; a detailed information storage block containing a detailed information associated with the respective components of the set; and a manual information storage block containing paragraphs of the maintenance manual stored corresponding to the respective components;
a display screen for displaying an information;
a main controller for data processing; and
a man-machine interface having a function for entering a maintenance request information, a detailed information display request, and a maintenance manual display request into the main controller and a function for specifying a position on the display screen.
Moreover, the main controller includes: a total management storage display controller for detecting a maintenance request information entered through the man-machine interface, reading out a total management drawing corresponding to the maintenance request information from the total management storage block, and displaying the total management drawing on the display screen; a partial management storage display controller for detecting a position specification on the currently displayed drawing through the man-machine interface, reading out a partial management drawing corresponding to a component specified by the position specification, from the partial management storage block, and displaying the partial management drawing on the display screen; a detailed information display controller for detecting a detailed information display request from the man-machine interface, reading out a detailed information associated with the currently displayed partial management drawing, from the detailed information storage block, and displaying the detailed information on the display screen; and a manual information display controller for detecting a manual information display request from the man-machine interface, reading out a paragraph of the maintenance manual associated with the currently displayed detailed drawing, and displaying the paragraph on the display screen.
Firstly, an operator enters a maintenance request information into the controller through the man-machine interface. Upon detection of this maintenance request information entered, the total management display controller of the main controller reads out a total management drawing of a set of components possibly causing an error, from the total management storage block of the nonvolatile storage unit and displays the total management drawing on the display screen.
Since only the set of components structurally related is displayed, it is easy to understand functional relationships between the components. That is, no excessive lines are involved to complicate the drawing and an operator can easily understand an entire configuration of set and locations of the respective components.
Here, the operator can specify a position on the display screen using the man-machine interface. Upon detection of this position specification, the partial management display controller of the main controller reads out a partial management drawing corresponding to the component specified by the position specification, from the partial management storage block and displays the partial management drawing on the display screen. Thus, the operator can easily check details of the component possibly causing the error.
Furthermore, if the operator wants to know a detailed information of this component, the operator enters a detailed information display request to the detailed information display controller of the main controller by operating the man-machine interface. Upon detection of this detailed information display request, the detailed information display controller reads out from a detailed information associated with the currently displayed component, from the detailed information storage block of the nonvolatile storage unit and displays the detailed information on the display screen.
This detailed information storage block can contain explanations on functions and remarks as a text information and operation states of movable components as an animation file and an image file. For example, the detailed information may be drawings and sentences explaining functions, perspective and other views of the components, drawings and sentences indicating a decision criterion required for a maintenance work of the component, and any other information considered to be necessary by a designer of this maintenance manual interface system. The operator operating this maintenance manual interface system can reference this detailed information to deepen his understanding on the components.
When the operator wants to reference a paragraph (page) of the maintenance manual associated with a currently displayed component, he can operate the man-machine interface to enter a manual information display request to the manual information display controller of the main controller. Upon detection of the manual information display request, the detailed information display controller reads out a maintenance manual information associated with the currently displayed component, from the manual information storage block of the nonvolatile storage unit and displays the maintenance manual information on the display screen.
A maintenance work, finally, should be performed according to a specification and information given in an authorized maintenance manual. With the help of the aforementioned total management display controller, the partial management display controller, and the manual information display controller, even an operator having little experience, by using the maintenance request information, can find a page of the maintenance manual required for an actual maintenance work in a short time. Furthermore, contents of a parts catalogue can be stored in the manual information storage block or in the detailed information storage block so as to correspond to respective components. Accordingly, the operator can rapidly retrieve a parts catalogue and a parts number.
Moreover, the detailed information storage block of the nonvolatile memory can contain an additional information for the authorized maintenance manual. This further helps the operator effectively perform the maintenance work.
Moreover, a program-recorded medium according to the present invention contains a computer program product for implementing through a computer a maintenance manual interface system for retrieving and specifying a paragraph of a maintenance manual to be referenced according to a maintenance request information. The program-recorded medium contains: a total management storage file containing an image data of total management drawings, each showing a set of structurally related components which set is specified by the maintenance request information; a partial management storage file containing an image data of partial management drawings corresponding to the respective components; a detailed information storage file containing a detailed information associated with the respective components; a manual information storage file containing paragraphs of the maintenance manual stored corresponding to the respective components; an operator operation detection computer program product for recognizing an operation by an operator on a man-machine interface provided in the computer and detecting a maintenance request information, a detailed information display request, and a maintenance manual display request which have been entered as well as a position of a position specification performed on a display screen provided in the computer; a total management storage display program activated upon detection of an entry of a maintenance request information by the operator operation detection program, for reading out a total management drawing corresponding to the maintenance request information from the total management storage file and displaying the total management drawing on the display screen; a partial management storage display program activated upon detection of a position specification on a currently displayed total management drawing by the operator operation detection program, for reading out a partial management drawing corresponding to a component specified by the position specification, from the partial management storage file and displaying the partial management drawing on the display screen; a detailed information display program activated upon detection of an entry of a detailed information display request by the operator operation detection program, for reading out a detailed information associated with the currently displayed partial management drawing, from the detailed information storage file and displaying the detailed information on the display screen; a manual information display program activated upon detection of an entry of a manual information display request by the operator operation detection program, for reading out a paragraph of the maintenance manual associated with the currently displayed detailed drawing and displaying the paragraph on the display screen; and an installation program for installing the total management storage file, the partial management storage file, the detailed information storage file, and the manual information storage file into the computer.